


Six Small Plots

by Starlithorizon



Series: Alchemy and Guitar Ties [36]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Death, F/M, Gen, I promise, M/M, MJN Air Is A Family, Old Age, So don't worry, really only kind of sad, there really is a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:53:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarisse Macdonnel pays a visit to some very old friends and reminisces on their wonderful lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Small Plots

**Author's Note:**

> I'm bringing back Clary from "Like Ducks to Water," and a few bits and pieces from other fics in the series. I missed her.

A breeze brushed through pines like sentinels, tangling the needles together and rushing through branches like water. Grass trembled at the slight touch, and birdsong swirled through the air. Mottled sunlight fell over the ground, glinting jewel-like against hard edges and worn surfaces. A butterfly flew in lazy patterns, landing on a delicate white wildflower.

Clary Crieff, who had grown into her looks, who now had grandchildren, who had dreamed of the sea and become a respected oceanographer, touched a light hand to a marble marker. This cemetery was full of forgotten memories and lost chances, stories that never got to finish as well as stories that got their happy endings. All cemeteries were like that, happy and sad and lonely, but this one was special.

In the Fitton cemetery, there was a row of six plots, each well-tended and some more worn than others. The grass was still a bit sparse over one plot, and the year of death was more recently carved than anything else, but they were equal in all other respects.

Professor Clarisse Macdonnel ran her fingers over names and years and epithets reverently, feeling the decades in the whorls of her fingerprints. She had only met Anita Richardson, née Scribner, once or twice, but the memories were fond. Douglas was a much more familiar part of her memories, there in every visit to her beloved uncles, teaching her to be clever and thoughtful and good at so many things.

Herc Shipwright, on the other side, was a smooth voice and several opera CDs given over holidays with the discovery of a new hobby. Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, who hadn't changed her name after marrying Herc, was a surprisingly fond and grandmotherly presence in memories. Carolyn had taught her to stand up for herself, and to be brave when people thought she should be afraid instead.

Beside Carolyn lay her son, one of Clary's uncles. Arthur Crieff-Shappey, once a steward, finally a CEO, beloved by so many. Between Arthur and Douglas was the sparsely-grassed plot belonging to his husband, Clary's uncle, the kindly captain Crieff-Shappey.

It was the entire MJN family, and it was the loveliest thing Clary had ever known. Everyone had died peacefully, old age doing what it inevitably did, and that was a blessing unto itself. Everyone had lived a long, long, beautiful life, and in the end Martin had only gone a few months alone.

The gravestones were all lovingly polished and tidied, small bunches of flowers at the foot of each. Clary had plans to plant flowers over each of their graves, as the Crieffs had done for both parents. Small, hardy things that would live on in the face of death.

Clary still remembered her uncle Martin's books of love. She'd page through them each and every time she visited their little house. She remembered fondly pictures from Herc and Carolyn's wedding, and photos of Douglas and Anita smiling so brightly, and her own face over the years with her brother and his blooming career as a pilot. She remembered postcards scattered round their home bearing tiny letters from her own adventures. She remembered a cat who rubbed against her legs and made ruffly, pleased noises when she was petted.

Clary tilted her face to the sun a bit and just remembered.

* * *

She hadn't been able to attend her uncle Martin's funeral, but she refused to see the guilt hiding in the back of her throat. Goodbyes do not need to be said to a silent box. They can be spoken to a quiet stone, whispered in a room empty of furniture and memories. It can be in the hushed slither of dirt against a coffin lid, or the finality of a closing door. Goodbyes have many faces, kind and malevolent and everything else in between, and Clary knew this quite intimately.

She had saved every little bit of it for this trip to Fitton, and now, here in the cemetery in her seafoam green coat, she gently bestowed it to the marker in the middle. A few birds trilled their melodies, bees hummed round the flowers left by earlier mourners, and wind rushed through branches like a river.

With a soft pat to the stone, Clary Macdonnel turned around and walked the short path to the open gate, sunlight falling in pieces on the grassy ground, life swirling all around as it always did and always would.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this wasn't _too_ sad! It wasn't really meant to be, you know?  
>  Also, prompts are highly encouraged!


End file.
